Where My Demons Hide
by lilyjack00
Summary: ATC for Hostage!, an episode that haunts me, like it does most people. This is just my attempt to give it some closure. The fourth and last chapter was written mostly by my dear friend singerme.
1. Shattered

Where My Demons Hide  
Chapter 1  
"Shattered"

_ATC for "Hostage!" original air date December 11, 1972, written by Paul F. Edwards, directed by Gunnar Hellström. Many, many, many thanks to singerme, who wrote most of the last chapter, the one at Kitty's bedside. She had written it as a standalone ficlet, and it fit so perfectly into this story that I asked to borrow it with minor revisions. _

Don't want to let you down  
But I am hell bound  
Though this is all for you  
Don't want to hide the truth

When you feel my heat  
Look into my eyes  
It's where my demons hide  
It's where my demons hide  
Don't get too close  
It's dark inside  
It's where my demons hide  
It's where my demons hide

"Demons" by Imagine Dragons, _Night Visions_, c2012

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Murky, violent nightmare images swirl, a rotten, gut-wrenching, hellish dream come true. Sheer terror in broad open daylight. Dirty dog soldiers hover like mangy wolves with hunger glinting in their bloodshot eyes. Filthy, godless men surrounding, crowding, staring...waiting. Icy-cold water sluicing through her veins, bitterly helpless against so many. Her skin crawls in horror and fiery anger all at once. The soulless men close in.

Sapphire blue eyes whose soft, gleaming gaze always caress him privately even in public, now stream tears of terror and searing pain and hopelessness. Silky, copper red hair made for winding his hands lovingly through is cruelly jerked and torn by the savage dog soldiers while they ravage her in vengeance for a crime she did not commit. Flowing skirts and ladylike, silken underthings meant to hide beautiful, long, shapely legs and other, more private and precious womanly flesh is brutally rent from her body. Smooth, milky skin meant only for his touch-manhandled, brutalized, tainted by their coarse hands and bodies. Soft, sweet lips intended to whisper tender words of comfort and love and finally seduction in the warmth of their shared bed, instead cry in tortured agony and shame. Breathless, bleeding, bruised and broken, her voice is weak and helpless and utterly shattered as she reaches out a small white hand. "Matt, I need you...please... Matt...where are you?"

Panting and wild-eyed, Matt Dillon wakes in a cold sweat, a guttural cry ripped from his throat as he grabs for his gun. In the darkness outside the halo of the campfire, there is no one to point it at. He feels powerless. Impotent.

Festus scrambles out of his makeshift bed nearby, mouth agape, expression panicked. "What is it, Matthew?" he hurriedly asks, although he reckons he knows exactly what troubles his friend once he gets a good look at him in the flickering firelight. Festus saw that very expression on Matt Dillon's face the day before when he towered over Jude Bonner, a big rock gripped in his powerful hands, preparing to smash in the unrepentant outlaw's skull.

Festus wholly understands why Matt would want to do such a thing, and truth be told, he wouldn't have minded one whit killing the filthy scudder outright with his own two bare hands for the unpardonable wrong he'd done to Miss Kitty. But Festus knew that, once the heated rage had passed, straight-shooter Matt Dillon, who lived and died by the badge and the honor that went along with it, would never forgive hisself for killing an unarmed man.

Matt hurriedly wipes away the tears mixed with sweat dripping down his haunted features while Festus pretends not to notice. The lawman winces as he gingerly touches the black eye Bonner has branded him with. "A dream..." he breathes raggedly. "Just...a dream..." Festus has never seen Matt Dillon so torn up.

But the irony of his own words hits Matt full force in the gut, because this is no mere nightmare to Kitty Russell, he thinks bitterly. It is all too real. She is suffering in Doc's office right now because of what the dog soldiers have done to her. Across the clearing in the moonlight he sees the shadowy forms of Jude Bonner and the other men who hurt her, bound in ropes and guarded by the many good citizens of Dodge who'd ridden out to help him. They'd risked their lives to avenge Kitty, the well-loved local saloon keeper with a heart of gold, a beautiful, welcoming smile that melted even men of stern stuff and an infectious laugh that could rattle the very rafters.

The lurid nightmare images of his lover's tender, abused body flood the big lawman's memory once again and he is overwhelmed with a blinding, murderous, red rage. He rises to his impressive full height, brushing Festus aside, and begins stalking determinedly across the clearing, his gun itching in the palm of his sweaty hand, the hammer tickling his thumb, as Kitty's bruised and battered face swims into sharp focus in his mind's eye_. Jude Bonner does not deserve to live._

Festus' hand is on his arm as he walks, plucking at his sleeve, his nasally twang first cajoling, then demanding. "Now, Matthew, think about whut yer doin'... Matthew, you know this ain't the answer..."

But Matt Dillon feels nothing save the rough hands molesting Kitty's delicate flesh, hears nothing but her defenseless cries, sees nothing except her pleading blue eyes, begging him for help. _Help that never came_, he thinks with an anguished groan that he stifles deep in his throat. _I won't fail her this time_, Matt thinks as he closes in on Jude Bonner, gripping his pistol tightly.

tbc

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	2. Blood Lust

Where My Demons Hide  
Chapter 2  
"Blood Lust"

Bonner and his men are all tightly bound, several snoring softly in the ghostly moonlight. Sam Noonan stands nearby leaning against a tree trunk, gun at the ready, a wary glint in his eye as he stares at the outlaws bitterly. His craggy, rugged features are stony and silent as he thinks his own dark, private thoughts. The tall bartender jerks to attention when he spies Marshall Dillon making his determined way toward the leader of the dog soldiers, gun drawn, expression a mask of hate and despair. Festus is at his side, but the Marshal brushes him aside like a pesky fly as he heads for his intended prey.

Sam had been afraid this might happen. In all his years in the riotous town of Dodge City, the old bartender had never seen a woman so ill-treated as Miss Kitty had been by those vicious dog soldiers. And he can see that Matt Dillon's murderous rage has not yet run its course. The blood lust born of vengeance still burns deep inside him, in retribution for the wrong perpetrated against the woman he loves.

Sam hurries to stand with his shotgun between the Marshal and his hated enemy. Matt Dillon towers over Bonner who sits on the ground, bound tightly to keep him from ever hurting another woman the way that he hurt Miss Kitty. Cocking the hammer of his pistol, his eyes squint hard like brittle diamonds in the darkness as he shoves the barrel against Bonner's temple.

"No!" Sam and Festus call out together, fear and urgency in their throats.

"Matthew, you cain't do this!"

"We gotta take 'im in for a trial! He'll hang for sure, Marshal Dillon!"

Every man in camp has his eyes riveted to the scene playing out before them, dog soldier and Dodge citizen alike. It seems as if no breath escapes the lungs of those who watch and wait, the only audible sound the lonesome call of an owl in the dark night. The idea is unthinkable to the men who know him. Will Marshal Matt Dillon shoot a man in cold blood?

The hair on the back of Sam Noonan's neck stands on end when he sees the look in the Marshal's eyes. "Marshal, you can't do this!"

Festus closes in and hisses, "Matthew, don't do it! It ain't worth it!"

Stepping nearer, Sam hoarsely whispers in his ear, "Remember Miss Kitty. Don't you wanna be able to go home to her?"

Festus continues, "You cain't go home to Miss Kitty if you blow this yahoo's brains out. You'll go to jail, Matthew."

"You'll never see her again, Marshall."

"You'll be no better'n him, Matthew. A killer...a stone cold, hard-hearted murderer."

Matt Dillon blinks back hot tears. His hand holding the gun shakes. Sweat drips from his temple.

Earnestly, desperately, Festus reiterates, "Think about Miss Kitty, Matthew."

Hastily, Sam adds, "She needs you, Marshal. Go on home to her. Right now. Get on your horse and ride."

"We kin take keer o' things here. You need to go back home to Miss Kitty now. She needs you more. Just put the gun down."

Matt tears his eyes from Bonner, who is sweating bullets, not moving an inch, eyes darting back and forth as he hangs on every word of the conversation taking place before him. He knows his life hangs in the balance. The Marshal looks at his friends, Festus and Sam, and takes a deep, shuddering breath. He releases the hammer on his pistol and takes an unsteady step back from the man he hates with a desperate passion.

Bonner releases a shaky breath while a cocky grin spreads across his face. "I knowed you couldn't do it, Law." His eyes stare coldly into Dillon's. "Besides, she was just a damn sportin' palace whore anyways..."

Lightning quick, Matt smashes his gun handle into Bonner's skull with a roar, then kicks him backwards onto the dirt with a satisfying, bone-crunching thud. Sam and Festus grab his arms and hold him back, preventing Matt Dillon from beating the life out of Jude Bonner with his bare hands.

Festus gets in Matt's face and urgently demands, "Go on home, Matthew!"

"Go back to Miss Kitty, Marshal," Sam pleads hoarsely. "That's where you're needed most right now. We'll head back to Dodge with the prisoners come dawn."

Matt pulls free from their grasp and turns on his heel without a word toward Buck, mounting him with a roiling heart and limbs trembling with rage. He has to get away from here before he kills that son-of-a-bitch outright. He turns Buck in the direction of Dodge. And Kitty Russell...

tbc

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	3. Intimate Moments

Where My Demons Hide  
Chapter 3  
"Intimate Moments"

"I can take care of myself, Matt Dillon!" Kitty had stood with her hands stubbornly planted on her hips, sparks flying from her intense blue eyes. "Haven't you figured that out by now?"

Riding Buck carefully through the shadowy darkness back towards Dodge, Matt is thinking back to the time when he'd last seen Kitty. Before Bonner had gotten his filthy hands on her. They'd been arguing. He had to go to Hays City for the trial of Jude Bonner's younger brother Virgil, and Kitty mentioned going to visit her friend Bess Roniger out Silver Creek Road while he was gone.

Matt had looked at his little red-headed spitfire standing there so mulish and obstinate yet, at the same time, so beautiful and desirable sometimes he thought he could drink her damn bathwater. It made him sick to think of anything happening to her. So, he just said the first thing that popped into his head. "Come on, Kitty, calm down now, honey."

He knew he'd picked the wrong thing to say when one of those finely chiseled eyebrows rose heavenward. He just stood and awaited the hot-tempered onslaught. Her voice took on a hard edge as she talked. "Ever notice how people who tell you to calm down...are the ones who got you mad in the first place?"

He watched as her soft lips pursed into a thin line. Matt groaned inwardly. "I'm sorry, Kitty, really I am. But Silver Creek Road? That's quite a distance, honey. Why don't you stay here till I get back, leastways until this all blows over?"

"I told you already I can take care of myself," she snapped. "I get lonesome sometimes when you're outta town." She walked to the window, crossing her deep blue satin-clad arms stubbornly as she looked out on the bustling street below. "I need a little change of scenery once in a while. I can stay with Bess and Will for a few days while you're gone. Sam can take care of things here at the Long Branch."

"But, Kitty, that's such a long, lonely ride out there. What if there are dog soldiers prowling around what with Virgil Bonner's trial coming up, just looking for trouble..."

"Matt, this time it's the dog soldiers. Next time it'll be somebody else. I can't live my life in fear of what might possibly happen to me!"

"Please, Kitty, stay here while I'm gone." He sauntered up behind her, sliding his hands around her waist. "I'll feel so much better if you're not traipsin' around the countryside alone without me." He pulled her back against him. She could feel his voice rumbling clear down deep in her belly. He quipped, straight-faced, "Plus, then you won't have to put up with all those Roniger kids!"

"Well, it just so happens, I like kids!" she protested with a pretty pout.

"But seventeen of 'em?!"

She couldn't hold back a laugh. "I guess you've got somethin' there."

He leaned over and placed a soft, lingering kiss on her neck, on a spot he knew from experience made her shiver in delight. "Promise me you'll stay here with Festus and Sam and Newly while I'm gone. So I know you'll be safe." He brushed aside her soft curls and kissed her ear.

She turned her head back towards him to answer. "I'll stay here, Matt. Just for you." Kitty looked at him from beneath thick lashes. "You know how much it pains me to say that, right?" She couldn't keep a little smile from twitching at the corners of her mouth.

And Matt couldn't stop himself from kissing those sassy, bewitching lips, painted the color of a desert sunset and shimmering in the afternoon light slanting through the window. Even after all these years, he still couldn't get enough of Kitty Russell, the smell of her, the taste of her skin, the sounds she made when he touched her just right, the feel of her supple body beneath him as he moved inside of her.

After all these years, she could still drive a man to distraction, after a long day's work with everybody sittin' around in the Long Branch, drinkin' beer and swappin' stories, mostly ones full of horse manure. She'd give him that look across the table, the one that made his gut tighten and his toes curl a little inside his worn leather boots. Kitty Russell could say so much with those seductive blue eyes of hers and not have to utter a single word out loud. lt made him feel like he was a kid again when he could feel his traitorous body responding, right in the middle of the damn saloon, and he was unutterably thankful for the wooden table hiding the evidence. And she did it all with her eyes. Then he couldn't wait until Festus and Doc and everybody else slowly trailed out of the saloon to head home so he could take his beautiful girl with her tantalizing bedroom eyes up those familiar stairs and make slow, heated love to her in the old brass bed.

Sometimes he wouldn't wait until everyone had cleared out. Sitting so close to her with all their old friends, knees brushing under the table, breathing in her scent, listening to her laugh as she barely trailed the tips of her manicured nails and smooth fingers over the back of his hand. The need for her growing inside him was all too overwhelming. He'd send Kitty a silent signal, then declare to his companions that he had piles of urgent, official government paperwork to catch up on, so maybe he'd see them later. And he'd tip his hat to Kitty and wish them all a good night.

Matt would make his escape by the swinging front doors, then sneak around and up the back stairs, letting himself into Kitty's bedroom with his own key. Within minutes, Kitty would arrive, face flushed and eyes shining, ready to take on her Marshal in a reckless game or two. They'd spend several utterly uninhibited hours tangling in the sweaty sheets, drinking their fill of one another's bodies, resting together afterwards, passion sated, deliciously intertwined skin on skin. Those spontaneous meetings between the two of them seemed to always be the most intense-their passion burned longer, their voices cried out more hoarsely, their whispers more urgent.

In addition, the intimate moments they shared together after one of their testy little arguments tended to be a trifle more...heated than usual as well. Now that he hoped Kitty had come to her senses and decided to stay in Dodge with friends who could protect her instead of roaming about the countryside alone and vulnerable, he figured the argument was pretty much over, so the making-up part could commence at any moment now, as far as he was concerned.

He laid a hand gently against her belly and pressed her back flush against him, so that she could feel what her nearness was doing to him. He watched as her eyes closed languidly, her small hand brushing the hardening evidence of his desire for her, making him groan. He'd already been surreptitiously admiring her beautiful face and form as they had argued, the sun streaming through her red-gold curls, setting them on fire, the beams illuminating Kitty's abundant curves.

Kitty occasionally complained about the pounds she'd put on over the years. All Matt could see was there were more generous, softer curves to hold and touch and kiss and caress. She always pulled a face at him when he said that, but he thought that his version of events had pleased her all the while. Because she continued to unstintingly share her lavish, womanly body with Marshal Dillon to this very day.

But now, as Matt rides along toward Dodge in the predawn darkness, he remembers that argument and the sweet making-up time afterwards. He tries to recall only what Kitty looked like when he slid her skirts up her long legs and touched her the way she liked to be touched, and they made love against Kitty's bedroom wall on a lazy Wednesday afternoon. Matt nibbled at Kitty's delicate neck some more, until she moaned and then made that sound down low in her throat that made his body stand up and take notice. She turned in his arms and pressed her breasts against him, shimmying her hips against his to let him know what she wanted.

His brow knits as he tries to remember her face, full of adoration and passion and simple trust when she leaned in to kiss him, opening her warm mouth to him and whispering sweet nothings against his lips until she came in waves and could no longer speak. That's the way he wants to remember her, but then his mind is torn back to the present and how he knows she looks now, her silken hair tumbled and tangled, her face bruised and bleeding, her tender body broken...just like his beleaguered heart.

Because ultimately he realizes that if he hadn't talked Kitty into staying in Dodge, if she had only visited the Ronigers as she'd wanted, then she would have been safe. Jude Bonner and the dog soldiers wouldn't have been able to hurt her. The tough lawman's sun-browned, furrowed face crumples in misery at this weighty knowledge while he rides home, back to the woman he loves.

tbc

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	4. Courage

Where My Demons Hide  
Chapter 4  
"Courage"

_My dear friend singerme wrote most of this chapter as a standalone ficlet, and it fit so perfectly into this story that I asked to borrow it with a few revisions. She graciously gave my story the perfect ending._

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Doc shuffles over to the bedside and checks the pulse of his patient. Still a bit thready, but thank heaven, at least it is still there. For a while, he had been afraid he wouldn't find a pulse the next time he checked. He'd been very worried that he'd lose Kitty after all she'd come through.

After Matt had gone to hunt down Jude Bonner, Kitty had rapidly developed a severe infection due to the terrible abuse she'd taken from the dog soldiers. When the lawman had arrived at Doc's door, hat in hand, eyes tortured and searching anxiously for Kitty, Doc had hated to tell him that she was so very sick now.

Doc had done everything he could. All they could do was wait. Maybe pray a little. Matt had brushed him aside and planted his large body in that uncomfortable chair by Kitty's bed and barely stirred for several days now. Several days of watching and waiting. And praying.

Doc glances over at the chair beside the bed and notices that its leggy, rumpled occupant is awake. Apparently he has been for some time. "Didn't know you were conscious," Doc says quietly, checking his patient's temperature which is still dangerously high. He wipes her perspiring face and neck with a cool, damp cloth then tenderly brushes her hair off her forehead.

"Yeah," Matt murmurs, looking at the small, fevered figure in the big bed. "I've been sitting here thinking."

"Thinking?" Doc sagely looks over at him.

"I was thinking about what my life would've been like if she hadn't come into it. How different I would've been."

Doc gives a quick swipe of his mustache but keeps quiet, letting the big man talk, knowing it is rare that he opens up to anyone save Kitty.

"You know," Matt continues, "from the moment I first saw her, I knew there was something special about that little red-headed tornado. Not just her looks, or her intelligence or even her temper but something extra..." His voice catches, and he threads his fingers through his hair. "Something I'd never encountered in a woman before."

He swallows hard as reaches over and takes her hand in his, softly rubbing the back of it over and again. "She has courage, Doc. You know that? A courage I've never seen in another woman and in very few men. She's faced things that would've killed most people and won the battle every time."

Kitty softly moans and Matt stops, anxiously scanning her face for any sign of consciousness. There is none. Doc steps back over to the bedside but moves no closer. He can tell she is still senseless to the world around her.

After a few moments Matt settles his weary frame into the chair a bit, never relinquishing the hand he clings to so desperately. Doc quietly observes the lawman's brooding features and waits patiently until he continues his rare soliloquy. "You know, the more I think about it the more I realize, it's her courage that has kept me going all these years. There have been times she had to have the courage for the both of us, cause I just didn't have it."

Doc's eyes narrow as he looks over at the tough US Marshal from Dodge City. He is having trouble imagining Matt without courage until he looks back down at the woman in the bed and he understands his meaning. She is probably the only person in the world that can bring the great Matt Dillon to his knees with nothing more than a smile.

"Every time I leave Dodge, I wonder for just a second if she'll be here when I return." Matt's voice is exhausted by his lengthy vigil by her bedside but the emotion is still there, rich and strong. "I mean she's had so many better offers than mine. I wouldn't blame her for choosing someone else. But every time I come home, there it is, a single lamp burning in an upstairs window just for me."

Utterly despondent, Matt raises red-rimmed, glassy eyes to the old man beside him, unable any longer to contain the tears that had been threatening to spill over for some time. "Doc, if she doesn't make it..." He can't continue. His heart is incapable of conceiving a world without Kitty Russell in it.

Doc tugs his ear before swiping at a stray tear of his own. He opens his mouth to reply when a scratchy, frail voice emanates from the disheveled, sweat-soaked sheets of the sickbed. "I'll make it, Matt," she breathes. "I promise, for you, I'll make it." The sound is music to his ears, but the taste is bittersweet in his mouth. Why did this have to happen to her?

Matt's sun-creased eyes widen in wonder at the strength and resilience of this woman who captured his heart so long ago. He gratefully leans in to whisper in her ear, "I love you, Kitty." Brushing his lips against her fevered temple, he murmurs the words again to make sure she hears him, "I love you so much." A smile just crinkles the corners of her sapphire eyes as they drift closed once more and deep, healing sleep claims her again. Matt kisses the small, white hand he cradles and releases a shuddering sigh. Because Matt knows Kitty Russell has the courage to make it through this, too.

End

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